


what you don't surrender (the world just strips away)

by asexualizing (Specialcookies)



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: 90's Music, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, I didn't exactly go but Practical Magic rules but this is definitely, Inspired by Practical Magic, Slow Burn, Witches, a practical magic au, but very very slight, it is a 90s au as well as a practical magic au, slight mentions of violence, specifically violence of men against women
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26811022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Specialcookies/pseuds/asexualizing
Summary: It’s called a true love spell, out of a fairytale—except Debbie knows the mechanism of it all and there is nothing magical about it. It involves a dead dove, it involves potions that stink like you wouldn’t believe it. But it works. She saw it herself. She knows true love blooms best when it runs deep, but that this spell can make it soar high. She knows that it’s always a seed of honesty that starts the fire upon which you lay your cauldron, a promise that you whisper into the flames; to love them. To love them. To love them. The rest doesn’t matter as much.“What are you even promising?”“I will never fall in love.”
Relationships: Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean
Comments: 74
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay this is has been a very spur of the moment decision to write this, but it's October so I figured, okay. I'm not committing to any schedule of chapters, but we can all hope I update this often. don't know how many chapters this will have, and possibly there will be a part 2 at some point. okay please enjoy and also title from Human Touch by Bruce Springsteen.
> 
> I appreciate comments and you appreciate me when I get comments because I write more <3

Before their father's death, all Debbie really knew about her aunt Ida was that she wasn't really supposed to know anything about her aunt Ida. Their parents wouldn't tell her even one goddamned story, Danny claimed to know just as much as her, and this practically summed up all the people she could count on, back then. As a younger sister, Debbie had always doubted the truthfulness of Danny's claim and pestered him for answers that she knows, now, he never had; but when they were just children, walking on their way to school with backpacks larger than them by a few good measures, Debbie couldn't help but think that if anyone was hiding anything from her, Danny must've be in on it. For many years, the only thing she wanted to know was something, _anything_ , about her aunt Ida. "Ida Ocean" she read out loud, one day, just vocalizing the letters that were written on the spine of a photo album. Her hand reached for it, then the album was quickly snatched from between her fingers. For a long while she'd been trying to snatch it back.

And then their father died. She can remember the feeling, but not the event. She remembers what it felt like before and what it felt like after, but truth be told, she doesn't remember much more than that. Her father died and that was the first time in her life there was ever a before or after.

After, she wished she could live her whole life not knowing a goddamned thing about aunt Ida. Not why no one in the Ocean bloodline speaks to her anymore—whoever's left, and excluding her, she supposes; not how she herself is, in fact, just like aunt Ida, same as Danny is, but maybe that was to be expected, from the way they both smile to their insufferable habit of tapping their heels on the ground when they are bored. After, she couldn't fathom why she was every curious: not about aunt Ida or any other thing like how to make jams that taste as good as hers and what teas and spices go well together in a blend and how to stir spoons in her cup without touching them or create a good luck charm that actually works. 

Maybe then Danny wouldn't have left. But does she really believe it's her aunt Ida who set the course for where she is right now and not her father's death? Danny would have left anyway, eventually, because what does he care, what's in it to prevent him from going anywhere he'd want to, do anything he'd want to? She doesn't know how to explain to him, whenever he calls her just to sustain a moral ground that he can stand on, that it isn't _fair_ that he could just do that—up and leave, not give a damn, carefree and curious and out there, even though their father died and their mother is gone and it doesn't even matter if she's somewhere physically present or not anymore, she's still gone, and it's Debbie who had to learn it all from aunt Ida, everything their parents didn't want them to know. Everything that they are capable of, and everything that she must be wary of. Not Danny, because Danny's never been wary of anything in his life—and their curse, their personal bloodline's curse that aunt Ida viewed as heritage and Debbie views as a cross to bear, speaks in very clear terms: it speaks of Ocean women and the death of the men they fall in love with.

No one knows what to do with Danny. The books don't say. And that's the way Danny likes it. So she doesn't know how to explain to him, still, alone in aunt Ida's old house and wishing for things that aren't possible, that if he could just be a little less of a jerk about running free in cities that Debbie will probably never step foot in—that would be great. Because she's the one taking care of aunt Ida's old shop, and old house, and fending people who believe that a witch is still living there, and he's the one making money in Las Vegas.

"Technically, a witch _is_ still living there."

"I'm retired."

"You're twenty-five."

"Not practicing."

"But technically—"

"Danny, shut up."

"Okay, but I only offered to get you a plane ticket here, so I'm not sure where exactly I went wrong."

"I'm not sure what you want me to do."

"Live! Get out of that miserable town and live. C'mon, Debs. Do you realize what we can do together on this strip?"

"Not practicing."

"I know you still make your blanket follow you around the house in case you'll need it."

"How—"

"Old habits die hard."

"Okay, well. I'm not coming. Next time you call, maybe just offer to stop by and help with the roses here, because I can't get them to last a single month, let alone a season, and you know I've never been good with the garden."

"Maybe I will."

But Debbie knows he won’t. Danny Ocean falls in love with life every single day because he can, so he lives. Before their father died, that's what Debbie was like, too. And then he died. And Debbie has been wondering, ever since aunt Ida explained that to her, what exactly it means to let yourself love something despite knowing that you're killing it.

She can barely stand looking at the roses.

*

It's called a true love spell, out of a fairytale—except Debbie knows the mechanism of it all and there is nothing magical about it. It involves a dead dove, it involves potions that stink like you wouldn't believe it. But it works. She saw it herself. She knows true love blooms best when it runs deep, but that this spell can make it soar high. She knows that it's always a seed of honesty that starts the fire upon which you lay your cauldron, a promise that you whisper into the flames; to love them. To love them. To love them. The rest doesn't matter as much.

Aunt Ida only performed the spell a handful of times, most of them before Debbie's lifetime; but that one time, that one time aunt Ida gave that miracle away to a woman so nervous Debbie could see her palms sweating from the top of the stairs—that one time was everything she needed.

"Why are you doing this?" she remembers Danny wondering, more puzzled than concerned, more quizzical than demanding.

"Because if there's a way to control it—"

"Is there?"

"If I make the promise."

"This is ridiculous, Debs."

"How do you expect to understand?"

"I don't, but—"

"Then let me work."

Then he took his seat in the corner of the room, watched Debbie silently as she performed miracles he couldn't begin to comprehend performing—Danny was good with schticks, with what a passerby might believe to be a con, not with what Debbie was doing. Not with what required to reach inside and grab at what you could find there. She wondered, when she was ten and full of it, if it's because he got lucky, and lucky people don't understand the necessity for magic. But now she understands the necessity for magic is a lie that she's been told. She lives just fine without it.

The flames you light with a seed of honesty need careful attention to be stabilized, and they take on the color of your eyes. Debbie's deep hazel brown left no shadows on the wall, only on hers and Danny's face.

"What are you even promising?"

Debbie ignored him. She can still taste the words on her tongue, today, when she lets herself stir a spoon without touching it or sits in aunt Ida's old rocking chair wrapped in the blanket she makes follow her around everywhere in case she gets cold. When she is looking at a woman browsing the tea blends in the store and smiling at Debbie and there is nothing about her that could resemble Debbie's spell.

"I will never fall in love."

And then, just to make sure, she devised the impossible—she devised a person with eyes so blue they put oceans in their place, with platinum blonde hair that falls into their eyes so they may never see what's wrong with her, with a heart that has enough space in its rooms for a whole other bloodline, with hands so strong they can hold magic between them. And she imagined she could be her friend, and sent her on her way, and promised she will never fall in love because, she thought, even if she could exist, _that_ would still be impossible, and even if Debbie could love her, Debbie could never harm her.

*

Claude Becker happens all at once. A local artist's paintings start appearing in the newspapers she reads and the next thing she knows, a renown art collector looking to buy them steps into her shop asking questions she doesn't have the answer to, because no one in this town even _talks_ to her. They buy her stuff. They probably wish that they could buy her spells. But they never talk to her.

"I don't know," she says for the fifth time, but Claude Becker, as he introduced himself, doesn't seem to mind that she knows nothing. His eyes—blue, of course she checks—glint and shimmer when he looks at her. There's nothing else about him. Nothing but the eyes, and she wonders what it even means to put oceans in their place. How can someone measure the color of an eye that way. Her heels tap-tap-tap on the hardwood floor and Debbie wonders if it's driving him crazy, and what's keeping him here.

"So I should ask around someplace else, should I?" He smiles at her, nothing mean, really, just teasing? Maybe? She's out of practice in the field of long-lasting conversations with anyone but Danny just as much as she is out of practice in the magic field. She notices the spoon in her cup spinning, a moment of carelessness she can probably afford herself right now, and grabs it immediately; sips her tea just to cover up for the sudden move. Claude Becker watches her carefully, blue eyes glinting and shimmering. Couldn't she think in terms of shades?

The truth is, he should. He should go and leave her be, she likes being alone in her store, arranging and rearranging products on shelves, daydreaming of things she could be doing with her life instead of being an out of practice witch with a general store in a town that hates her but loves whatever it is that she's making. For example, she could join Danny in Las Vegas, though that is probably her least favorite option; she could do Atlantic City, maybe find someone to work with who isn't so confident in his own cons that he forgets, sometimes, that even the smallest amount of magic births circumstances. She does like the idea of _working_ in the terms under which Danny puts it; "it's business and pleasure," he always says, "and as long as you're careful, that's all it is". Traveling—that's another daydream, further than Las Vegas or Atlantic City, further than this continent, probably. She wonders, sometimes, if magic feels the same on every ground, in every corner of the earth. But those are daydreams—aunt Ida wouldn't let her rest the way she does now if her shop wasn't taken care of; she's lucky enough aunt Ida lets the roses slide.

That's another before and after in her life. Before aunt Ida died, Debbie thought that maybe she's grown enough and out of the curse, maybe she doesn't need to worry about falling in love now that she isn't ten. It seemed simple, all of a sudden, to not worry about something that is as feeble as love. Danny was long gone and Debbie was tired of not being long gone just because—what, she might _meet someone_? That's fairytales, she knows the mechanism. She was almost ready to say goodbye, almost ready to say _fuck it_ and risk life to play with death. But then death came, and Debbie couldn't. She felt like her roots, planted in this town long before she came to live in it, were heavier to uproot with another person in her bloodline gone. Isn't it funny, how it's her now? Just her? Because the books were about her, and that's the way that Danny liked it, always, so why should that change? Why should anyone but her be responsible for those books?

"How's that tea?" Claude Becker asks, and Debbie realizes she's been sipping it for longer than appropriate now. She lowers the cup, and Claude Becker sniffs the air adjacent to it. "Actually, can I get a bag of that?"

"Sure," Debbie says, and his eyes, blue in a way that she's getting tired of caring about, follow her.

Claude Becker happens all at once because Debbie's not used to something happening in her life, and she lets him. He kisses her in her kitchen and she likes it, presses her against her counter and she likes it, and when she feels him, hands up his back, around his neck, down to his waist where—

Well guns were never something she thought of as useful, to begin with. But he manages to get some spells out before she turns it back to him, almost draining Debbie of the will to fight him. Because, essentially, that's what everyone in the town wishes they could get out of her, and why should a stranger be any different. She calls Danny, and he tells her he doesn't _remember_ what she's meant to do with a body, he never got it to begin with, but god _damn_ it Debbie, why couldn't you have come to Las Vegas?

 _Why couldn't you have come here?_ Debbie thinks, and then she hangs up on him and buries Claude Becker under the dead roses in the garden because she remembers something with the roses, but when she needs to bury him a second time, she remembers why aunt Ida always pestered her about the roses.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Detectives."
> 
> "Please, I'm Tammy, this is Lou. No need for titles."
> 
> "Lou?"
> 
> "Mhmm. What do you go by?"
> 
> "Pardon?"
> 
> "Well, we said Deborah, but if you go by Deb, Debbie…"
> 
> "Madame Ocean would be perfectly fine."
> 
> Lou cracks a smile. Registering Tammy's face tells Debbie these are very different women.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so funny thing happened, I haven't slept in like 48 hours. here's chapter 2. happy October.

What do you do with a man who had already announced his presence to the whole town before you murdered him? Debbie's not even sure what you do with an anonymous man, not sure that the burial process was sufficient enough the second time, as well, that her fingers bringing roses back to life with desperate murmurings and pleas for _something_ to happen has actually achieved the desired effect. She covers him and prays. She's not even _supposed_ to pray—God has no deals with her bloodline, nor Satan; there are procedures for who you go to, who everyone goes to. She's just hoping that maybe she's been good enough this year and Santa's listening.

Her hands are filled with dirt and mud and wandering weeds. She washes them, watches the water browning and going down the drain, and thinks that there's something she should be saying now, too, for these remains to never come to life. She knows people leave traces everywhere they touch, that that's how magic _works_. She knows the more you touch the harder it is to get rid of you. Claude Becker is not only known around this town, he's _been_ around it. And around other places, too. Debbie looks in the mirror. She wonders what, exactly, becomes of human touch. There is something that she should be saying, but she does not remember. She's alone, and she cannot remember.

"Ida," she tries. No one answers. "Ida," she tries again, but this is futile. Spirits don't just come when you call their name—there are rituals for that, but mostly, spirits come when they believe that they are needed, and maybe—maybe Debbie needs to wait this one out. Ida will be here if Debbie will be in real trouble.

At least that's how it is supposed to work.

*

She sleeps curled in aunt Ida's old rocking chair, blanket wrapped tightly around her body. She didn't intend to, but once she set her cup of tea down on the floor next to her and tried to rest her eyes, just for a moment, there was no way she would get up. The house is uncomfortably silent, an uncanny impersonation of a looming threat. Debbie knows to trust her guts. But has she not, just hours ago, done exactly that with Claude Becker? What good did that do her?

_"I just need this to work, Debbie, you see?" he spat between his teeth at her, held the gun to her head, and Debbie shouldn't have been afraid of a bullet, but she could barely hold herself together for long enough to conjure the charms that he had asked for. Demanded. One after the other. Luck, Lust, Life, Land, Lo—_

"Ida," she tries again, not expecting anything to happen, just tired. Something in the pit of her stomach is telling her that there are words for this, but all she can think about is that one stupid spell her mother actually taught her, veiling it as a nursery rhyme. "I see the moon, the moon sees me," she hums, voice strung high and straining against her dry mouth. "Down through the leaves of the old oak tree. Please let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love."

For protection, her mother would say; the moon protects us all. Debbie has never been afraid of the night. She's not about to start now.

*

The knock comes loud and alarming. Debbie jumps up, releases her limbs from the tight embrace of her blanket, and hurries to her door. _Fuck. Fuck._ She doesn't need to know who exactly is there to know that no one ever knocks on a witch's door without a pitchfork. Not on hers. Not here.

She runs her hand through her hair, fingers combing it back in place, thinks about the backdoor shutting and it does, bare feet hurrying down the corridor as she straightens her grey cotton sweatshirt as best she can.

Two women are standing at her door. They smile at her. Debbie knows, instantly, that they have no idea what they have immersed themselves in.

*

"Detectives," Debbie greets as she leads them into her kitchen, rummaging through cupboards for something that might befit the occasion. Not quite her usual morning blend.

"Please, I'm Tammy, this is Lou. No need for titles."

When Debbie turns to face them, holding a jar filled with leaves and herbs and plants for them to pick in each hand, the taller one approaches her. She's not quite sure, now that she thinks of it, which of them announced herself and which one hasn't. Before she could ask a question, though, any question, to not make a fool out of herself, the woman now in front of her speaks. "Here," she says—Australian accent cutting clear and sharp through Debbie's momentary confusion—and grabs one of the jars. Then she brings her hand forth to shake Debbie's.

"Lou?" Debbie takes it, Lou's fingers snugging her palm with ease and certainty.

"Mhmm. What do you go by?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, we said Deborah, but if you go by Deb, Debbie…"

"Madame Ocean would be perfectly fine."

Lou cracks a smile. Registering Tammy's face tells Debbie these are very different women.

Then Lou releases her hand, and Debbie's left standing awkward with a jar of herbs and leaves and plants. She lays it on the counter, walks over to Tammy to shake her hand as well. Glancing at the back door, willing it to stay as it is, Debbie then continues her path to put the kettle on the stove.

"It's Debbie," she tells them, more seriously. She gives nothing more than what they ask for. She knows how this game goes. It's not them she worries about. It's something entirely more sinister, and those women's faces tell her there is no place better for them to be than far away from it. Tammy brushes a lock of stray hair behind her ear, clears her throat, and smiles not-so-comfortably. "Tea?" Debbie asks her.

"We won't be staying for long."

Lou cuts diagonal through Debbie's kitchen and is once again standing by her side, handing her the jar she picked off her hands. "Sure."

Debbie takes the jar, fingers sliding over Lou's, smooth and almost too natural; she knows how people work, how bodies work—familiarity takes time, and it comes down to the minutest of movements, the smallest of interactions. Natural only comes when you've been close enough for nature to perceive you as a unit as well as individuals. The earth knows her, and the earth knows Lou. She can't think too much about why the earth might know some form of _them_. There are problems to solve, and bodies to bury. Lou steps away as Debbie begins her preparations, hands sliding easily into pockets in pants that are too tight to have pockets.

"Debbie, we just have a couple of questions, as we said. Detective S—'

"Tammy," Tammy cuts Lou off. Lou rolls her eyes at her. Debbie watches her from the corner of her eye, hiding beneath her mane as she brews her blend. Lou shakes her head, hairs flying but then landing on her forehead exactly as they were before. She blinks a few times, and Debbie's too distracted to notice that her elbow has caught a little fire. Luckily, no one else does, too, and Debbie just blows on it and tells it to quiet down.

"Tammy and I have just been looking for someone for quite some time now."

"How long?"

"Well—"

"That's confidential information, Debbie. But last we heard, he stopped here for a few days."

"Strange choice for a vacation."

Lou snorts. Tammy chastises her with a glare. "We don't believe it's a vacation he was after."

"Alright, then. What do you believe he was after?"

"Again, confidential information, Debbie. But—"

Something shifts. The water in the pot hiss and sizzle, then settle down into a steaming pool. Debbie's skin prickles.

"No one comes here," she says, abruptly. She removes the pot from the stove, goes to pour the liquid into mugs. Lou hurries to get them for her from where they hang above the sink.

"We didn't say he came _here_ ," Lou says, tone gentle and reassuring, as if she's worried Debbie might think ill of her.

"What help am I, then?"

"You have the store, don't you? Heard exceptional reviews of your blends."

Lou holds the mugs for her, and Debbie pours the tea in. There's not a single sign of distress in Lou's body as boiling water moves through a path that with the slightest slip might harm her.

"I do."

Tammy pulls a photograph from the pocket of her FBI jacket. "Have this man ever visited?"

Debbie looks into Claude's eyes. "No," she lies.

They glint and glimmer at her, but before she can _do_ something, Tammy puts the photograph away. Cursed things, these cameras, she swears. Nobody knows how careful you must be with them.

Lou sips her tea, steam enveloping her ever-lenient expression. "Delicious," she mumbles.

Tammy is clearly impatient to move on from Debbie's house. Debbie smiles at her over the rim of her mug, but Tammy is struggling to return the gesture. "Can I offer you anything else?"

It's Lou's turn to pull something out of the pocket of her jacket. She hands Debbie a business card with her name inscribed in black, formal letters. "If you hear anything, give us a call, yeah?"

Debbie places the card between her waistband and her stomach, picking out over her sweatshirt. "Sure."

"We better get going," Tammy announces, and this time, Lou plays no contradictive move. She lays her mug down and walks alongside Tammy toward the front door as Debbie follows them.

"What's his name, by the way?" she asks, for good measure.

"Claude Becker," Lou calls back, all treble and bass.

"Keep us in mind," Tammy adds.

Debbie feels anxiety settle over her like stones. The wind is blowing through the back door.

*

What do you do with a man who had already left his mark on the world? An insignificant part of it as Claude Becker may have been, this world knew him, knew his body, the shifts that came with steps he took. Like it knows Debbie. Like it knows Lou. Like it knows Debbie and Lou—No.

Focus.

The secret, Ida always told her, is to learn what the world knows.

Debbie stands by the roses and watches them wilt away as rain pours over her head.

*

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," she softly pleads the receiver as Danny's phone rings and rings and rings somewhere in Las Vegas. "You're an ass." She decides. "What help you'd be, anyway."

*

"Strange weather," Lou's voice carries over from the entrance to Debbie's store. She looks up for her women's magazine, quickly shuts it, and slides it under the counter just to not risk anyone seeing the Witchy Weekly she's been _really_ reading while the store stood empty. There's never been any actual help in these magazines but maybe if she could figure out her robe type she could know more about herself. What year was this magazine from, anyway? 1985?

Lou's not looking at her. She's standing with her back to the counter, looking over the shelves where Debbie grabbed Claude's blend from. She picks a bag up, turns it this way and that, then puts it back in its place. The faint sounds of _The Cure_ play over the store's speakers. _Show me, show me, show me…i_

"Can I help?" Debbie asks, not too serious about her suggestion, just wants to grab Lou's attention. Her shoulders, broad and covered in a leather jacket that seems to have replaced its professional counterpart, roll back, muscles working, and then she turns around, head ducked and still avoiding Debbie's gaze, chewing on a toothpick, scanning every bit of candle that she can lay her eyes on.

"Just looking."

"Ah, of course."

Then Lou does look up, not shy but coy, lips curling up into something as genuine as Debbie's ever seen. "Browsing," she continues.

"To gauge prices."

"I'm comparing."

"By all means."

By the time they're done, Lou's leaning against the counter.

"Still looking for your man?"

"Still looking for my man."

"How's that going?"

"Confidential."

Debbie nods, tilts her head innocently. It's a game—it _is_ a game, the game of winning Lou on her side before _witch witch witch_ will begin to drip into her ears. She could use someone on her side, even just to fend distractions as she takes care of the real problem. She could be taken away for murder, but she can't let that happen before she solves the…spirit. Thing. "Of course."

Eyes—blue. _Glint and glimmer_. Debbie sees them. Turns her head just to see something else.

"Where's Tammy?"

"Around."

"That confidential, huh?"

Lou laughs. Debbie's certain of it. "Well, tell you what."

Before Debbie knows it, Lou's amassed three bags of blends and two candles on the counter for her to tally up. She raises an eyebrow at Lou. Lou shrugs. "Gonna be here a while."

Debbie scans the items. Claude's blend is in there, and she swallows down the uneasy taste in her mouth. _That_ is not something a person leaves a mark on.

She thinks.

She packs it all up for Lou, hands her the paper bag, and follows the movement of her jaw as she moves the toothpick in her mouth to the other side. Without thinking, Lou snatches a pair of cheap, plastic heart-shaped sunglasses off the countertop where they sit in the ugly green carton box they came in; Debbie's not even sure _why_ she has those. She bites her lip furrows her brows in an expression of mock anger.

"You have my number," Lou winks at her, sort of. She shakes her head again to move the hair off her forehead, which once again falls back exactly into its original formation. She puts on the glasses. "How do I look?"

Cameras, Debbie thinks—people need to know _when_ to use them.

"Not bad."

"Thanks."

And Lou's gone.

*

Claude is, however, definitely, most certainly _not_ gone. As Debbie steps back inside her house, she doesn't need anyone to tell her something is simmering in the air, trying to burst out of it.

"All right, Deborah," she whispers to herself. "Let's relearn this. How do you truly kill a man?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This can't possibly be right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so apparently I'm not going to stop unti I get this out of my system, okay. cool.
> 
> hope you enjoy please keep commenting I become more powerful with each comment and I love y'all <3

She gathers every single book in Aunt Ida's library that might be helpful on the dining table and starts digging. The afternoon sun is more orange than it usually is this time of year, and Debbie wonders if it's Claude's blood sipping into the autumn season, off from her hands to her entire surroundings, the prematurely-spilled red coloring the town with its haunting anger.

 _And what does he even have to be angry about?_ Debbie knows he deserved it, deserved more than it, probably. Claude Becker had tried to tame a witch to his desires, and witches have long now been too tired of that shit to not react to it. Debbie knows she had a right, in her own little world where witchery has rules and regulations that outsiders are unaware of. She knows it wouldn't matter to anyone but her. But she also knows that first thing's first: when a witch does something she must do it right, because—

Because even the smallest amount of magic births circumstances, that's why she's been limiting herself to insignificant little schticks that are ridiculous even compared to Danny's cons, isn't it? Circumstances. That's what she's been warry of since her father died, circumstances that might lead to extremely undesirable consequences. That's why she promised that stupid promise when she was ten, and that's why she's still _here_ , and that's why she hasn't been practicing, and that's why she's dealing with having to kill Claude Becker for the third fucking time.

So it doesn't matter if Claude Becker has a right to haunt this place or not, he's doing it because Debbie fucked up. And she needs to fix it before it's completely out of her hands. And she wishes she could be like Danny and never be affected by her fucking up. By anyone's fucking up. Just live her life like nothing actually matters.

But things matter, don't they? Things matter, otherwise she would have just let Claude Becker get what he wanted and wait for him to leave and go back to the store and never sell that blend of tea ever again.

There are multiple books on this table that—well, that Debbie's not entirely sure what is even up with, or why Aunt Ida even kept them or purchased them, to begin with. Books with titles like "A Comprehensive Guide for the Desirable Witch" or "What To Expect When October Comes"; Debbie's never been into self-help guides but even if she were, those wouldn't have been the ones she would pick up at any store or, well, more likely, a traveling witch's stand. In any case, Debbie throws them aside and looks for what Aunt Ida used to teach her as a child. Her Latin is a bit rusty, but she's perfectly capable of understanding titles such as "The Art of Murder: From Methods of Execution to a Perfect Conclusion".

Okay.

This one better _work_ , she thinks, as she breathes in and tastes trouble in the air.

*

The knock on her door doesn't startle her as much this time around. She's not expecting anyone, of course, but Debbie's come to expect things she's not expecting to happen to, well, happen.

Halfway through "The Art of Murder", Debbie puts the book aside, looks around at the mess that is her dining table and the back door that refuses to just stay shut like it's supposed to (nothing good ever comes in through the back door, she knows, and that's why Aunt Ida always chastised her when she walked in through it); she considers not answering, but with two FBI agents around town, that's probably not the best course of action to avoid their snooping.

Tightening her burgundy robe, Debbie makes her way to her front door and is less than surprised to find Lou standing there, heart-shaped sunglasses adorning her face, FBI windbreaker back in place. _Is this official business, then?_ Debbie wonders. Lou half-smiles as Debbie answers her knock, peeking behind a crack she decided is enough to see who it is, but not let them in. "May I?" she asks, and Debbie doesn't know what's wrong with her but she wants to say _sure_ and step aside.

"I'm a bit busy," she forces out. Lou takes the sunglasses off. She tries to look behind Debbie and into the house, but Debbie knows her body is blocking the entire view.

"Company?" Lou looks into her eyes. Something inside Debbie's chest tightens. She clears her throat as she realizes she's staring.

"No, work."

Lou's eyebrows are slightly furrowed in a look of amusement.

"Your store's closed today."

"Yes, it says so on the sign, closed on Sundays."

Lou rubs the back of her neck. She doesn't inquire about Debbie's mysterious excuse any further, but she turns more serious than her tone was up until now. "Actually, that's what I'm here for. Tammy and I need you to let us in."

"Excuse me?"

"We need to check for prints."

Debbie's heart jumps into her throat. She raises an eyebrow in an attempt to seem more casual than she might sound. "Whose prints, exactly?"

"Well, as we say—"

"Confidential."

"But you can guess. Tammy's been talking to some people. They say Claude Becker has definitely been in your store."

"He's—"

"I don't expect you to remember the faces of the people who visited, but we need to make sure now."

Debbie stretches her lips into a thin, uncrackable line. Lou moistens her lips, leans her weight on her left leg, and waits. She doesn't take her eyes off Debbie, and Debbie hates the way it makes her feel, hates how comfortable she is with Lou just looking.

"Where's Tammy?" she eventually asks, clipped and mostly to say _something_ as the silence stretches on and Lou's patience seems infinite.

"You keep asking."

"She doesn't want to talk to me, does she?"

The way Lou's lips tremble as if to hide something tells her she is right. "She just thinks I'm better suited for that."

Debbie can't deny the claim. Under the circumstances, she probably shouldn't _want_ to talk to Lou, but something in her does want that. It's not anything to admit to Lou, though, and if Tammy's been talking to people around town, she's probably been hearing what Debbie knew that, at some point, both Tammy and Lou would be hearing.

Debbie would be remiss to bring that up herself. She searches Lou's face for any sign of fear but finds nothing except her natural confidence and ease. Then, Lou's face twitches, for a brief moment seeming softer than anyone should seem, looking at Debbie as if she found something impossibly enchanting. Just as quickly, the look's gone.

Debbie would be stupid to not comply with Lou's request. She knows whatever excuse she'd find for that would only mean her innocence would be further questioned.

"Give me a minute," she tells Lou and shuts the door. Lou waits.

Inside, the susurrus of perdition envelopes Debbie. She ignores it.

*

Lou says nothing on their way to Debbie's store. She walks two steps behind Debbie with her hands in her jacket pockets and nods at every person who's giving them strange looks. People aren't used to seeing Debbie walk alongside anyone. They're probably thinking Lou's gonna arrest her soon.

Her cardigan, tucked at the front into her Levi's, doesn't do a lot to keep the wind from her skin. The places where Claude Becker's hands touched come to life in the most unpleasant way, as if the vestiges he left behind on her body and around town collide. Debbie shivers slightly, covers her palms with her sleeves.

 _Fuck off_ , she thinks, looks back at Lou to find her staring. She turns her face forward once again. They walk.

Lou brushes past her and into the store as soon as Debbie opens the door, and Tammy follows behind them. She observes Debbie not the least uneasily as Lou dusts the place for the prints that they are looking for. Debbie's not sure they'll find them, but she's not that sure that they won't.

"How are you finding the town?" she asks Tammy while Lou works.

"A strange choice for a vacation" Tammy replies without thinking, and Debbie appreciates her just a little bit more for turning her words back at her.

"Anyone's been of help?" she continues investigating, just not sure what she could possibly say to Tammy besides talking shop. But she can see Tammy's laconic answer coming from miles away.

"Some people." She clearly does not mean Debbie, but Debbie can't fault her for feeling that. It's not like she's been trying to be.

She watches Lou working, focused, unbothered by her and Tammy's talk. Her posture nonchalant and her movements meticulous, she dusts and collects, dusts and collects. Debbie's going to have to do something about that dust later on, but she can't think of anything but the way Lou's hair falls on her forehead as she works, right now. Once in a while, she would try to move it, but its insistence to be in the direct line of her sight is unmatchable. Debbie wonders why she doesn't cut it, then Lou looks up at her, face as soft as they were at Debbie's doorway, and Debbie can't look away—but must.

 _No_ , she thinks. _Absolutely not._

"Thanks for coming down today," Tammy tells her, courteous enough for that, at least. "We're a bit tight time-wise, so we appreciate that."

She takes the possible evidence that Lou hands her and turns to talk to her. "All good?"

"All good, Tim-Tam."

"Lou."

"Sorry," Lou replies, not apologetic at all. "But it's out now."

 _Tim-Tam_ rolls her eyes. Debbie tries to hide her laugh behind a cough.

As they leave the store and Debbie locks behind them, a group of kids come down the road on their bikes. The sky is darkening, and the wind blows slightly colder. Debbie knows what to expect, but the last thing she needed was to be by Tammy and Lou's side when it happens.

"Witch!" one of the kids shouts, and the others follow him.

She doesn't react. She doesn't have the nerve to look at Tammy nor at Lou, so she doesn't, but she can feel Lou's eyes on her. She hopes, that maybe, maybe, Lou's seen enough of her good side to still not think that, well.

Both Tammy and Lou ignore them, too, to Debbie's relief. The tense moment fades into the chilly wind as the kids continue riding past them.

"Coming?" Tammy asks Lou.

"You can go, I need to settle a debt with Madame Ocean," Lou replies. Debbie knows Lou's not going to pay for the sunglasses, and cannot fathom what her intention can possibly be, but she can't say she's not half-excited to be left alone with Lou.

_No. Absolutely not._

She watches at the silent exchange of words that takes place between Tammy and Lou just then, uncertain of what to read into it. Then she's left alone with Lou once again.

"Madame Ocean, huh?"

Lou shrugs. "Can I walk you home?"

Debbie tenses. "I'm okay."

"These kids—"

"Are harmless."

"Sure, but—"

"I'm okay."

"Everyone seems to—"

"Hate me? They probably do."

Lou examines Debbie's staid expression. Then she inhales sharply.

"Okay, well. You have my number." And, as if Debbie needs any further explanation of what she means: "Just in case."

Debbie nods, looks around them. "Well, you owe me 7 bucks, so."

Swiftly, with a smile that tells Debbie that Lou's relieved to hear her joking, Lou pulls her wallet out. "They do frown upon theft in the FBI." She hands Debbie a tenner. Then she puts her wallet back in its place and her sunglasses back to cover her eyes. She pops her gum.

"You don't want any change?" Debbie wonders as she pockets the money.

"Next time."

"I don't like owing things to people."

"It's a deposit."

"What for?"

"Make sure you don't disappear."

"You think I won't disappear just because I owe you three bucks?"

"Yeah."

Debbie swallows, heavy and sweet. Lou's cheeky smile shines below the sunglasses.

"You better catch up with Tim-Tam."

Lou groans. "Please don't call her that to her face, she'll kill me."

"I promise I will."

Shaking her head and probably rolling her eyes under the sunglasses, Lou takes a step back away from Debbie, then stands in place as if something's holding her back and preventing her from leaving. "Call me. If you need."

Then Lou walks away from her, not bothering to conceal the way she looks back over her shoulder or excuse it with anything but bluntly wanting to lay her eyes on Debbie.

 _Bad luck,_ Debbie thinks, because it _is_ —looking back has always been considered the worst form of a bad omen. Nevertheless. She can't help but feel warm, now.

*

Back at home, Debbie finds Claude Becker has done quite a bit of work coming back. Torn pages cover the floor next to her dining table, dead flowers are scattered all over the place. She sighs, picks the pages up. "Go away," she mutters, but Claude Becker can't answer her just yet. Though she knows exactly what he'd say if he could.

She needs to work quicker. She needs to stop being distracted.

*

Danny does pick up this time around.

"Is he gone?" he immediately demands to know upon answering.

"Thanks for the concern, what would I do without you."

"Well, is he?"

"No. I'm calling to ask if you remember where we used to get dried fish bones."

"You're out already? What has it been, a decade?"

"Well, do you or not?"

"You'd need to get of town for that."

"I assumed, but where to?"

"Try the Roses' shop. You remember them?"

"Yeah, thanks."

A pause. Debbie is tempted to hang up without saying anything else, but before she gathers the will to do so, Danny speaks. "Are you okay?" He sounds genuinely worried, which only pisses Debbie off even more.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? I mean, a man is haunting you…"

"And are you going to help me do anything about it?"

"Can I do anything from Vegas?"

"Doubt it."

"Debs, I can't come back, you know I—"

"Yeah, yeah, you'd _die_ if you had to step foot in this town ever again. Thanks for the help."

"Debs—"

"Talk to you later."

She hangs up, pinches the bridge of her nose. Right. The Roses' store. Things will probably be okay here until she comes back from there.

*

Except, as she steps out, she the setting sun is blood-red, and the whole town is under the shade. She needs to dried fish bones, though, doesn't she? To make things okay. To make this place safe again. She begins walking down the hill and toward the car she hasn't driven in ages, doubt following her every step. It's been way too many days since her home was quiet. Since she felt something more than dread.

Debbie's not a particularly happy person, but she's been living peacefully. The fact that _this_ is the most exciting thing that's happened to her in a while isn't what she'd wish for on herself even at her worst moments of boredom.

Why couldn't she do it _properly_.

_Because he took control of your magic in ways you don't want to admit to. Because he scared you and you acted out impulsively. Because you haven't been careful enough. Because you decided no more magic and found out that's not possible when you're a witch. Because—_

Of course, her car won't start. Why would it, when it's been sitting here without a care in the world for probably longer than she actually remembers. She can probably take the time to bewitch it back to life but if she's being honest, she's tired of doing that, and it's only been a little over a week since she's started again. She can't imagine what she'll feel like the longer this goes, or what will happen the longer this goes; she needs this to end.

She grips the wheel, grits her teeth, and does what she probably shouldn't do, but hopelessly wants to, anyway.

Lou picks up too quickly for it to seem casual.

"I have your three bucks," Debbie informs her, and soon enough, Lou's cocking her head in a gesture of delighted disbelief at Debbie's car window.

"Miss, I need you to step out of the vehicle," she jokes, and Debbie thinks this is the first time in their very brief acquaintance that _she's_ the one to roll her eyes.

In Lou's car, Debbie decidedly avoids Lou's gaze. "Want to tell me where to?"

"I'll give you directions as we go."

Lou is quiet for a little too long. "I shouldn't be doing this," she eventually admits. Regardless of what she should or shouldn't be doing, she starts to drive.

They don't talk but for Debbie's directions. The one time Debbie dared looking over at Lou, her jaw was working her toothpick from side to side, eyes set on the road, hands gripping the wheel a little too tightly. The brazen, easy-going manner which Debbie has come to recognize as uniquely hers has evaporated into a somewhat reluctant replacement. As quickly as she looked over, Debbie turned back to face the passenger's window, but she still can't stop wondering if Lou's regretting going a little too far with this back and forth of them. She is, after all, conducting an investigation that Debbie's at least a witness in, if not something worse. And why did Debbie even call her? She doesn't need to get too personal. She doesn't Lou to know about the Roses' shop.

"What now?" Lou asks, nearing a fork in the word.

"Left," Debbie instructs, and they continue in silence.

Lou waits in the car as Debbie get her dried fish bones, concealed in a matte black plastic bag, and doesn't ask Debbie about the store at all. She leans back in the driver's seat, turns her head to Debbie when she shuts the passenger's door and says—"So when they called you a witch."

Debbie knows the drill. "Oh they were absolutely not joking," she deadpans as best she can. No one ever knows how to react when she deadpans.

Lou examines her as Debbie keeps up the straightest face she can possibly keep.

"Claude Becker's prints were all over your store."

"Isn't that confidential?"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I'm telling you."

"Why?"

"Same reason I drove you here."

"And what is that reason?"

"I have no goddamn idea."

"So, are you in trouble?"

"I think you might be."

Oh, Debbie definitely is. But not for the reason Lou thinks she is. Not for a reason she could possibly tell Lou. She shrugs in lieu of words.

Lou shuts her eyes for a brief moment, long enough for Debbie to miss the way they looked at her just now. When she opens them, their blue seems to run deeper than blood. "Debbie?"

"Yes?"

"Did you kill Claude Becker?"

"Twice."

"Be serious."

"How can I, when you're asking the most ridiculous questions?"

"Are they really that ridiculous?"

Debbie tilts her head, gives Lou her _look_. The one that communicates "come on, you know I'm right" better than any words can. It's her most precious look, her most precious tool. She thinks part of it must be magic, but she would never admit to it.

Lou turns to face the road. Sighs. "All right," she admits defeat and starts driving. "So you simply don't remember his face."

"I simply don't remember his face."

She's not one-hundred percent sure that Lou believes her. But Lou's driving her back to her house, and not to any sort of police station, so that's enough.

"Swear to god, Debbie Ocean," Lou murmurs, "I hope I don't regret this."

Debbie pretends to not hear. Ahead of them, lightning strikes. The same blue as Claude Becker's eyes. A car horns at Lou as she loses control of the car for a moment brief enough to not be consequential but too long to be insignificant, fixes her placement within the lane, and waves at the other driver apologetically. At the next red light, she turns to look awkwardly at Debbie. "Sorry," she says, eyes positively the most beautiful blue that Debbie has ever seen under the blood orange light they are surrounded by, hair falling into them as she blinks in succession three times. She reaches for the radio, changes the station and Bruce Springsteen comes to life in the space between them. _Ain't no mercy on the streets of this town…_

Debbie swallows hard and sour.

This can't possibly be right.

*

Back at her house, Debbie crushes the dried fish bones into powder, mixes it with the dead leaves of the roses, shuts her eyes, and tries to will the screeching in her head away. This is a start. She can fix this.

She goes to scatter the mix over Claude Becker's makeshift grave and is terrified to discover that his body no longer lies there.

_Fuck._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if none of them got it right. She knows is it virtually impossible, and still, the thought eats into her the more time she spends with it hovering in her mind. If she can fuck up killing a man, it is certainly possible she can fuck up not killing a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're doing it ladies

If losing Claude Becker's body wasn't enough, it seems that ever since Lou and Tammy arrived the town residents have been avoiding Debbie's store almost religiously. It's not that she _cares_ , but she does need the money, if nothing else. It does mean she has more time to read the things she'd like—well, "like" is a strong word for "needs in order to get rid of a ghost", but it also means she's not making any big sales in particular. She almost hopes Lou would stop by for some more tea and candles.

She can't be hoping for Lou to come. She doesn't think that that would be particularly smart. Not with Lou's eyes, and Lou's fringe, and Lou's _everything_ , not with what it all means, what she doesn't want it all to mean. Because it _can't_ be right, it can't be right, not now, not when Debbie's certain something so so bad is coming if she won't stop it on time. And what if she didn't get it right like she didn't get killing Claude Becker right. What if danger is imminent. What if death is just inevitable and she can't _do_ this to Lou, who seems to be searching for trouble simply by being cordial with Debbie as it is.

What if none of them got it right. She knows is it virtually impossible, and still, the thought eats into her the more time she spends with it hovering in her mind. If she can fuck up killing a man, it is certainly possible she can fuck up not killing a woman.

Time's running out, and Debbie doesn't want Lou involved in it. Except, Lou can't seem to stop "checking up" on her. She knows soon enough Lou will do something, something that involves seeing Debbie, and Debbie needs to be strong-willed enough to not—

To not be tempted. To not, for one second, think that things can possibly turn out alright. They don't, that's the fact of it. They only do for Danny. Because the books only know what to do with her, and that's what's been written down in them.

She tries to read the chapter in her "The Art of Murder" about disappearing corpses, but all she can see is Claude Becker's eyes staring at her from Tammy's picture.

*

"Witch!" the kids passing by her as she locks up the store shout, and Debbie ignores them, as she does. "Witch!" they shout again. This time, another voice comes from behind her.

"That's not very nice," Tammy shouts at them, then smiles in response to Debbie's surprised look over her shoulder, still not entirely comfortable.

"They're just kids," Debbie tells her, because _they are_. They don't mean much. They don't do much.

"Well, doesn't mean that they shouldn't behave."

Debbie's not sure how to respond. Tammy can probably sense her confusion. She's never talked to Debbie without Lou's mitigation. She shuffles her feet for a brief moment, then declares—"I'll cut to the chase."

Debbie couldn't be more grateful. There's just something about Tammy's that is…unnerving. Not in a necessarily bad way, but for Debbie, right now, it is.

"Go ahead." She straightens her back and lifts her chin.

"Look, Lou says you don't remember his face, that's all. But Lou can…Lou trusts you, for some reason. I still don't know if I should. And I'm running an investigation. So I need you to be upfront with me, in the future. I'm not crossing any strikes yet, but."

"But you are, just the first," Debbie tries to smile to make her words easier to swallow, but it doesn't work. It comes out sharp.

"I'm just asking. I don't think you…I don't think you're a dangerous person." _Oh, but Debbie is. She doesn't like being dangerous, but she is._ _Tammy must know that._ "I'm just asking."

It's not that Debbie's _angry_ , or that she doesn't understand. It's just that she also doesn't like being put in a position where she's half-way threatened.

She smiles conspiratorially, even though there is no one to conspire with. She doesn't want to be mean, she just wants Tammy off her back—she's probably going to achieve the opposite by being that rude, though, she knows it, and yet…

"Well, if I'll remember."

"This isn't a joke, Debbie," Tammy snaps, and Debbie knows this isn't good, but she also knows it could be way, way worse.

"Next time, bring some cookies, we can have a conversation at mine's."

"Alright. Well. Next time, I'm not sure I'll be asking."

Debbie does smile, just then, but it's no attempt to ease the conversation. Tammy waits a few seconds, maybe to give Debbie time to apologize or defend herself, maybe in hopes that Debbie will spill a full confession out, and then clears her throat, tells Debbie to have a good evening, and walks away.

Debbie didn't even think to ask where's Lou, but now that's all she can wonder about.

*

"Go the fuck away," Debbie says into the empty space of her living room. There's nothing there, really, except there's _too much_ there, way more than furniture and decorations and magazines and books. Maybe she has no idea where Claude Becker's _body_ actually is, but she can sense him, almost completely palpable, all around her. Like his hands are reaching out to wrap around her body; like his words are about to spill in; like he's about to haunt this house—haunt _her_ —in the most basic, classic form. Does she need to find the body for this to work? _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

Debbie closes her eyes, tries to summon something other than Claude Becker, tries for Aunt Ida, for her mother, for anything that can possibly help her, but the lightening colored like Claude Becker's eyes snaps under her eyelids and she reopens them, panting.

She can feel it in the pit of her stomach—the bad thing that's about to happen, without even being certain of what it is. "I see the moon, the moon sees me," she mumbles as she goes around the house, gathering every single leaf she knows is supposed to keep the bad spirits away. "I hope you're having fun in Vegas, Danny. I hope the shrimp cocktail spills in your lap. I hope you lose your money to the fucking slot machines."

Okay. She can will a bad spirit away. She's been…through the basics of it, at least. It's kind of like shooing a cat away with a broomstick. Kind of like flipping a middle finger at the kids who call her a witch when their parents aren't looking. She just needs—

"Ever thought of getting a housekeeper?" Lou's voice makes her jump in her skin. She turns on her heels so abruptly that the tunic she's wearing flaps behind her like a robe. She shouldn't have bought it _black_. Lou, chewing on a piece of gum and leaning her weight on her left leg in a way that is becoming almost characteristic of her in Debbie's mind, doesn't seem to mind the frenzies state Debbie—and Debbie's house—is currently in. She also doesn't seem to notice any of the various features that give Debbie's lies about not being a witch away. "Door was wide open," she explains way before Debbie even opens her mouth to ask. "I thought that maybe…" she trails off, shakes her head in another futile attempt against her fringe.

Debbie should be expecting to see Lou nowadays. She has no idea why she's caught off-guard every single time.

She breathes in, deep. "Thought that what?"

Lou clears her throat and attempts to mask her avoidance of Debbie's eyes by checking out the impressive library covering a whole wall on her left. "Clearly I was just invading on a ritual, wasn't I?"

Debbie's not sure whether she is being teased or questioned.

"You know what they say about me," Debbie decides that whatever it is, she's going to keep playing along.

"Witch, witch, you're a bitch," Lou recites without a single ounce of heart to it.

"Oh, you heard the full version now."

Popping her gum, Lou chuckles. No sunglasses. Leather jacket. Leather pants. When Lou turns her back to her and walks toward the library, Debbie can't help but _look_. She swallows as Lou sways her hips and wills herself to stop. If she can't control anything else in her life, she can at least control _that_.

"Interesting collection," Lou comments as she glances over spines and runs her fingers over shelves.

"My aunt's."

"Where is she?"

"Dead."

"Oh." She doesn't say she's sorry, doesn't offer any condolences, just approaches Debbie again and sighs. "Family," she says, then, as if Aunt Ida has simply moved away to Florida and left Debbie to handle a mess. But the way her eyes bore too deep into her and shine too soft at the edges lights something up inside of Debbie, like Lou understands, like she doesn't need to tell her anything at all for Lou to understand. She knows what kind of titles Lou found just now on these shelves, and yet, Lou mentions none of them.

Debbie clears her throat. "What are you doing here?"

It's as if Lou snaps back to a whole other kind of world. "You don't owe me those three bucks anymore, had to check you're not going all fugitive on me."

"Oh, so I'm being surveilled now."

"By me, though. Ain't that nice?"

"Tammy told you to come, didn't she?"

"She actually tried to tell me she'd do it herself."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That she can't handle you."

"What's to handle?"

Lou doesn't reply. Just cocks her head and lifts an eyebrow in a manner that implies she's heard all about the other day. Debbie shrugs and tries to hide a smile.

Pages rustle. Lights flicker. A cup blows to pieces in the kitchen. That's just great, just fucking great. Of course he'll play the most obvious of moves.

Lou gives her a _look_.

"Don't ask." She tries to sound casual.

"Seriously, housekeeper."

"As if that's going to help me with a ghost."

"I don't understand half the things you say, seriously."

"And thank god for that."

Something buzzes in the air around them. Debbie stops herself from groaning in frustration and telling Claude Becker to fuck off again. Lou looks up to her ceiling, then back to Debbie. Debbie holds her gaze.

"If you need a quiet place to sleep…" Lou intones too slowly for it to be a mistake, and then runs a hand down the back of her neck decidedly, as if she refuses to admit she didn't mean to actually let that out.

"Are you offering refuge to a suspect under your investigation?"

"You're not all the way there, just yet."

"Oh, good to know. Just an almost-suspect. What are you investigating, anyway?"

"I can't—"

"Confidential."

"It is."

Debbie nods, understanding, and at the same time, wishing Lou would walk a thinner line than she already is with her. _No. Stop that._

Lou stuffs her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, shivers slightly. It's only then that Debbie notices the temperature drop in the house. She wraps her arms around herself, gaining a look of—concern, is it? from Lou. She was the one to freeze first. Debbie doesn't understand it, the way Lou just…cares, for some reason, about her. Does so many things she's not supposed to because of that. Looks at Debbie as if she wants to hold her, right now. She can't understand it, and at the same time, she is afraid that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.

"What did he do?" Debbie asks, and Lou immediately looks away. It's like playing a game of chicken, every time they stare into each other's eyes. One of them always has to do something to make the other break out of it.

"Who?" Debbie can tell she's only stalling.

"Claude Becker."

"Nothing good. Look, Debbie—" and she comes closer— "If you know anything—"

Lou is close enough to touch. Debbie holds still.

"I told you what I know."

"You didn't, actually."

The phone rings. She hopes to _whoever it is that is listening right now_ that it's Danny and not anything else, and though she shouldn't leave Lou alone in her living room, she goes to pick up, to make sure she doesn't need to also exorcise her landline now.

"Debs," Danny's voice comes through clear as day and Debbie breathes out in relief.

"Not the best timing, Danny."

"Well, you can't win it all."

"What have I won lately?"

"I don't know, did you get rid of that man?"

"Not now."

"What are you so busy with?"

"Nothing."

"Alright, just calling to say I remembered what it is about the roses."

"That's too fucking late."

"What happened?"

"Can I call you later?"

"You can try."

"Oh, fucking fantastic. I will."

"I just can't promise anything."

"When have you ever?"

"Well, if you need something with the roses…"

"I don't. Bye, Danny."

"Jeez. Bye, Debs. Keep me updated."

She hangs up. Better than a ghost, though.

Back in the living room, Lou is seated in Aunt Ida's rocking chair. Debbie stands right around the corner, where she's pretty certain Lou can't see her. Looks at Lou rocking back and forth, eyes closed, a serene expression on her face amidst the mess that is Debbie's house. She lets herself look. Just for a bit. Just enough to be able to remember.

When she does step around the corner, Lou does not comment on the conversation she has probably overheard. Instead, she keeps her eyes closed and asks—"What was that song you hummed, before?"

"What?"

"Something about the moon."

"Oh."

"I see the moon, the moon sees me…"

"Shining through the leaves of the old oak tree, oh, let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love."

"Yeah, that's it."

Something pulls the words out of her throat. "My mom used to sing it to me."

"Over the mountain, over the sea, back where my heart is longing to be, oh, let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love."

Debbie comes closer to where Lou is still rocking back and forth, back and forth, hesitant to interrupt the moment. But something calm settles in the space where they are. Like rays of sunshine breaking in-between clouds.

"How do you know it?" she whispers, throat too dry.

"I just remembered. Not sure." Lou blinks her eyes open. For a moment, Debbie thinks she's going to beckon her closer. Then Lou looks at the storm beginning to show its signs outside Debbie's window with a frown.

"What are you doing here, Lou?" Debbie asks again, before the magic's gone and she will never get a proper answer out of her.

"Just felt like seeing you."

"Why?"

"I don't know." She turns her head sharply towards Debbie. "Do you?"

"I—"

A thunder booms and cracks. The house shudders.

"You need to go," Debbie says into the air, not sure if she means Lou or Claude Becker.

Lou can't grasp the uncertainty, though. She gets up swiftly and stuffs her hands into her pockets once again. "I do," she agrees, approaches Debbie until there's almost no space between them. Debbie breathes in and out laboriously. "Tammy's not gonna hold back for long," she tells her. Her fringe falls into her eyes, makes her blink a few times in succession.

Debbie can't help herself. She reaches up, clears Lou's fringe off her eyes. Lou's lips tremble, half a smile and half something deeply pained.

"I can fend for myself."

"Why do you need to?"

"What did Claude Becker do?"

Lou sighs, small and longing, as Debbie slides her hand down to Lou's cheek then off her face completely. Her throat works as hard as her jaw.

"I don't want to regret this, Debbie."

"Regret what?"

"You."

"Why would you?"

"Tell me the truth."

Rain falls hard outside. The back door blows open and drizzles fly all around them.

Before Debbie can gather the courage to do just as Lou asked her to, Lou squeezes her shoulder and turns to walk away.

"I need to go," she says as if to convince herself. Debbie can't muster the courage to stop her.

Standing alone in the middle of her living room once again, Debbie's not sure what she's supposed to do next. Not sure she is as strong-willed as she should be. Not sure there's anyway to stop what's coming.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three occurrences happen in very quick succession one after the other, that week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello

_Debbie…_

She hears him now, loud and clear. Saying her name, intervening and interweaving inside her head. _Debbie Ocean…_

He is more than reaching. He is so close to _grasping_ and Debbie startles and jostles awake, fists her duvet between white knuckles.

"You're unwelcome in this house," she calls, voice echoing in the darkness. She knows the attempt is feeble, might last but not for long—she tries anyway, breathes in and wills the air to tighten, to form a thin line, pentagram-like in its effects. "Uninvited," she enforces. Here goes her beauty sleep, she supposes.

Rolling out of bed, Debbie sighs. She might just need to let Claude Becker return and kill him all over again. She doesn't particularly like the option, so she shuffles to the kitchen, blanket following her. Opening and shutting cabinets in a lazy, tired pace, Debbie floats jars and wooden boxes out, lays them in order on the counter, and opens the doors directly under the sink Aunt Ida's favorite cauldron requires a nice scrubbing before Debbie can use it.

Eventually, she lights a little fire in the middle of her kitchen and lays the cauldron with some wine in a deeply disturbing shade of red. Turning back to the jars and wooden boxes, she makes a mental checklist and gets to work.

She already hates the taste of this Begone Bygone potion, but she doesn't have that many choices or aces up her sleeve.

*

Three occurrences happen in very quick succession one after the other, that week:

**1\. Tammy and Lou visit the shop**

It's another rainy afternoon, as many of them are going to be for the foreseeable future, and Tammy and Lou walk in and make the bell at the door ring two times.

Debbie lets them look around as they seem to wish to do. Tammy scans the house appliances section filled with ceramic bowls and cups while Lou looks at nothing in particular, and certainly not Debbie. It doesn't _sting_ , it just…not what Debbie thought another concourse with Lou would be like. She tries to tell herself it's for the best—that Lou hurried away in the rain, that she's avoiding Debbie, that she's not in Debbie's personal space again, that Tammy is here to turn this into an all-too-official visit that Debbie is still not completely sure of the purpose of.

"Can I help?" she eventually asks, gets too impatient and irritated with their feet-shuffling.

"Debbie," Lou begins, clears her throat. The name rolls out of her mouth like she's already sorry for what'll follow. "Have you had any personal relations with Claude Becker?"

Debbie's eyes go wide, eyebrows jumping up her forehead. Tammy approaches the counter. The taste of the Begone Bygone potion that lingers still under the roof of her mouth becomes more prominent, for a quick second, than recedes. She is not going to break, not under these circumstances, and certainly not about that kind of information.

"Excuse me?"

Tammy interjects before Lou can explain herself. "We were talking to your neighbors. They said you left this store together and that…you seemed _friendly_." Clearly, Tammy means _more_ than friendly.

Debbie's dumbfounded. That certainly was a slip, to not consider the possibility someone has seen the two of them together. A slip to think no one would think to mention that, because while nobody talks _to_ her they certainly talk _about_ her. A slip she needs a few more seconds to figure out a way out of.

"The artist," Tammy speaks slowly, as if trying to communicate the gravity of the matter at hand, "whose works were in the newspaper, Nine-Ball. She says Claude Becker was interested in buying. At least that's what he went around telling people."

"What's that go to do with me?"

"We think it's peculiar that someone in a deep a debt as Claude Becker would go after buying more paintings for his failed galleries,"

"Again, what's that got to do with me?"

"Maybe you can tell us," Lou speaks now, something strange and cold in her voice. Debbie wants Tammy out of here so she can _explain_. Maybe that's the only thing she can do now, explain—but she can't. She can't.

She looks Tammy straight in the eyes and decides that when you can't mess around with the truth, lies are all you have left. "I think you have some bad sources if you believe I have ever been _friendly_ with Claude Becker."

"What, so they're just trying to badmouth you?"

"Would you truly be surprised?"

"Debbie," Lou says her name again but adds nothing else, leaves it hanging like half a plea and half a threat. She is also looking Debbie in the eyes for the first time since walking into the shop.

"It's the truth," Debbie says. It tastes worse than the Begone Bygone potion.

Lou holds her gaze for a few seconds, nods in an uncommitted way, then says: "Alright, Tim-Tam, come on."

They leave. Debbie could curse the whole world, right now—but she stops herself from doing that.

**2\. Lou almost gets hit by a tree branch at Debbie's**

She hurried home furious—at herself, at Claude Becker, at Danny, at the concept of witchery and ghosts—and hoped to find good news there. Somewhat relieved to not find the place blown up to pieces and the layers of protection she has bestowed upon it somewhat still intact, Debbie breathes in, goes to the kitchen to make some tea. Maybe the potion can work, given a little more time. She hears time can do wonders.

The tea is just coming to a boil when a knock on her door squeezes every bit of serenity that she had in her out.

Lou's standing at her doorway again, doesn't wait for Debbie to invite her in.

"You're hiding something," she tells Debbie upfront. "And I need you to tell me what that is."

Debbie shuts the door and follows Lou back into her kitchen. "Please, come in," she sarcastically retorts.

"Stop."

"I think I should be the one to say that."

"Look." Lou is clearly distressed, her hair is in disarray and she is moving _too much_ as compared to the stable, composed person she usually is. "I've been on this case for months now. And nothing, _nothing_ as weird as the shit that's going on here has happened."

It's been far too long of Debbie being told nothing, only being asked questions, constant questions. It's Tammy, and it's Claude, and it's Lou, too, now, prodding and pushing. It's been far too long of Debbie under this constant stress. "And what exactly is this case?"

"It's—"

"Confidential. Well, maybe I'm confidential, too, then."

Lou's jaw is squared and tight as she looks at Debbie. She clearly doesn't want to take any bullshit at the moment. They stand there, as intense as they ever were, and Debbie hates herself for the cracks she's beginning to feel forming inside of her. She can't resist Lou's eyes, can't she? _Goddamnit_. She can't resist _Lou_ and the rawness of her voice when she pleads "tell me _one_ true thing, Debbie." It's when she adds "I keep trusting you," with no small measure of frustration, and then wonders "why?" that Debbie truly breaks.

It's like her body sheds layers upon layers of caution and leaves her all raw. "Okay," Debbie says weakly and nods at Lou to show her understanding. "Okay. Come with me."

She leads them to the garden through the broken back door. The undug grave, the weeds and wilting flowers, the lightning in Claude Becker's eye color—it's all there. "Take a look around," she tells Lou as they walk through it.

"Are you showing me how bad you are at taking care of your house?" Lou asks, confused if not a little amused, then. Still some traces of affection to Debbie left in here.

Debbie shakes her head, tries, as always when it comes to Lou's jokes, to hide a smile. "You know how I told you I killed Claude Becker twice?"

Lou raises a sharp eyebrow.

"I buried him right here," Debbie points at the ruined patch of roses. "Twice."

She stops and turns to face Lou, whose truly dumbfounded expression is possibly the most endearing thing Debbie's ever seen.

"Debbie," she says, and then: "twice?" and then: " _twice?_ "

"Do I get double the life sentences for that?"

"Don't joke."

Debbie almost feels _good_ in a way she hasn’t felt since she and Danny were kids and magic seemed to be fun and nothing to worry about. She almost lets herself be relieved, that Lou knows, and she seems to still be…Lou. but that's when it happens. That's when the thunder booms, the lightning cracks, the moon disappears under a cloud, and a branch that was moments ago connected to the tree behind Lou breaks, and breaks, and breaks, and almost crushes with its mighty force into Lou's body. Debbie's quick enough to act, moves and pulls Lou towards her and out of its reach as her name slips between her lips in an embarrassingly desperate manner.

Lou pants, clinging to Debbie where they now stand together. Looks down at her. Shocked, but also—

"Thanks," she croaks.

_It can't fucking be, don't you fucking dare_ , Debbie thinks. They've been close, before, disregarded personal space throughout their whole acquaintance, but not as close as this. Not as close as bodies pressed together, breathing the same air.

"You really killed him?" Lou asks, as if to bring up something that would make them both less concentrated on the other's body heat, but she doesn't step back. Instead, she lays her palm open flat on Debbie's heart as if to see what exactly she's making her feel. Debbie swallows.

"Twice."

"That makes no sense."

"He wasn't a good man, wasn't he?"

"A very bad one."

"Why does it matter, then?"

"It matters."

**3\. Lou kisses her.**

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._ Debbie feels elated, like she could fucking float like the fucking blanket that she carries fucking everywhere. Lou's lips are soft and warm and she's kissing her deep, deeper as Debbie responds, as Debbie's _body_ responds. And Debbie _wants more_. Can't help but wrap her arms around Lou's neck and sigh into the kiss as Lou pushes her body even closer to Debbie.

But _fuck_ , Debbie thinks. They stumble back until Debbie's back hits another tree, and the rain is falling now, hard and fast, pouring around them and on them and it's ridiculous, really, that this is how it happens.

"Lou," she says, and again, "Lou." Lou stops kissing her, but Lou also runs her nose along Debbie's jaw. "What are we doing?"

"We shouldn't, should we?"

"No."

_I'll kill you_ , Debbie doesn't say.

One hand firm against the tree behind Debbie, one hand to Debbie's hip, Lou looks down into Debbie's eyes, hungry, and Debbie, for one brief, reckless, stupid second, understands how people let themselves love someone even when they know the end.

"You know," Lou whispers. "I'm not really sure why I keep coming to you."

Debbie closes her eyes, lets herself drown in Lou's scent and warmth. "I think I asked for you."

"You're a really confusing woman, Deborah Ocean."

"I tell you that I killed a man—"

"Twice—"

"And you kiss me."

"I guess we're both a bit confusing."

_Kiss me again,_ Debbie thinks, tries with all her might to not do it herself. But Lou does. Lou kisses her. And Debbie thinks that for one short, short moment, they're both floating. _Fuck._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are things you don't know."
> 
> "Worse than what you've told me?"
> 
> "Maybe."
> 
> "I promise, Debbie, I—"
> 
> Lou stops, doesn't finish the sentence no matter how long Debbie waits while she clears Lou's hair out of her eyes repeatedly. She breathes in, fingers tightening around Debbie's ribs slightly. "You promise what?" Debbie encourages, heart high up in her throat.
> 
> "I want to help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I avoided half of my to-do list today and wrote this, I'm sorry to the me of tomorrow. happy halloween!

It's nothing out of the ordinary that pulls them both out of the kiss. Just Lou laughing, breathing in shakily, two palms against Debbie's cheeks, saying, "We should go inside."

They're soaked to the bone, Lou's FBI windbreaker dripping on Debbie's fingers where she holds onto it tight, pulling Lou toward her. Nevertheless, she feels nothing but warmth between the tree trunk and Lou's body, nothing but good, nothing but safe. Her mind is blurry around the edges, lips puffed up and red, her insides all tangled up and between her thighs a pleasant ache, an afterthought of interest. How long have they been doing this? She doesn't remember the last time she was so unaware of the material world, of her surroundings, forgetting any existence outside of the moment Lou kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.

"Just a while longer," she says, tries to capture Lou's lips, but Lou evades her, buries her face in the crook of Debbie's neck, instead, and runs a tongue against her pulse point. Debbie's knees buckle slightly, and Lou's palm lands on her thigh as she hums approvingly.

Debbie hasn't thought about _that_ , but to be fair to her, she hasn't thought about _anything_ , really, besides Lou's lips.

"Come inside," Lou murmurs, pulls Debbie's hips to hers, and tilts her pelvis oh-so-slightly. It's a quick turn of events, all things considered—from frustration to persuasion, from giving a shit about decorum to giving none. And Debbie _wants_ so deeply she feels it through the spot in her sternum where—she came to know a long time ago—magic resides. But the thought of stepping outside their little circle, their little bubble, it paralyzes her. What's out there, what's surely to come, she feels it can't touch them here. The thought of finding the worst possible outcome to it all if they go inside punches the air out of her lungs.

Lou notices, she must, because she lays her fingers where Debbie's shirt sticks to her ribs and brings their lips back together briefly, pulls back again and says, "You'll get sick."

"There are things," Debbie begins, bringing her hand to Lou's neck, running a thumb along her jaw, chasing Lou's lips. Lou closes her eyes and lets her, lets her brush a butterfly kiss to them, loses herself to Debbie's touch in the most satisfying way. In the most natural way. How could that be, even if Lou _is_ who Debbie thinks she is, that their bodies work together like that, fit together like that. That the version of _them_ the earth knows is so smoothly operating, like they've never been apart.

"There are things," Lou repeats askance, prompting Debbie to stop sucking on her lower lip and continue her thought.

"There are things you don't know."

"Worse than what you've told me?"

"Maybe."

"I promise, Debbie, I—"

Lou stops, doesn't finish the sentence no matter how long Debbie waits while she clears Lou's hair out of her eyes repeatedly. She breathes in, fingers tightening around Debbie's ribs slightly. "You promise what?" Debbie encourages, heart high up in her throat.

"I want to help."

How long has she been alone, now, Debbie wonders? How long since someone lent a hand? The mere words make her want to surrender everything to Lou. She shakes her head against the onslaught of unfamiliar emotions, things she'd only ever dreamt were possible when she tried to make a promise against them. How long has she known Lou, now? She couldn't possibly say.

"Come inside with me," Lou says again, palm against Debbie's cheek, staring unwaveringly into Debbie's eyes. Debbie gives in. Lets Lou lead the way through the ruined garden, through the broken back door, holding her breath and wishing nothing happens, then, after nothing does, takes the role upon herself to bring them to her bedroom.

*

"There's a shower through there," she points Lou towards the en-suite. Lou nods, hands on her hips, scanning the messy floor of Debbie's bedroom like she's biting back another comment on Debbie's messiness. "I'll get you a towel."

She turns away from Lou, not without a hint of struggle, and opens the closet door behind which the towels are folded, not quite neatly. She closes her eyes for a brief moment, trying to get in tune with the energy of the house, but only feels the faint loom of danger, weaker than it was even a few hours ago. Maybe the potion is, after all, working.

By the time she grabs a towel and turns to hand it over to Lou, Lou is right there in front of her, swooping in to kiss Debbie again so fiercely that Debbie drops the towel on the floor, gasps, and melts. "Later," Lou breathes into the kiss, arms wrapping around Debbie's torso, running along her back not the least frenetically.

Debbie's body lights up. "Later," she agrees, fingers tangled in Lou's hair. Lou slides her tongue teasingly against Debbie's lip, sighs when Debbie opens up to her. It's so easy to slip right back to where they were under that tree, get lost, again, in this kiss, this primal dance of their bodies. Debbie forgets, again. Floats, again. Breath held in anticipation when Lou runs her hands under her shirt, lifts it up over her head. Breath coming out interwoven with a moan as Lou cups her face between two palms and slides a thigh between Debbie's.

"Okay?" Lou asks, and Debbie nods, deepens their kiss, moves to unzip Lou's jacket. There's electricity between them, now, buzzing almost too perceptibly, like a bolt of lightning hitting too gentle to harm, but hitting nonetheless. Lou's been thinking about this, Debbie realizes. Been thinking about this the way Debbie stopped herself from doing, resisted with all her might and failed; and they're both falling apart at the seams, now, Debbie realizes as Lou stops their kiss and pants when Debbie's hand slides against the skin of her belly.

She wants to tell Lou exactly that, play around with their mutual desperation. She doesn't look away when Lou's eyes find hers, even though everything inside her tells her it's impossible to take that color in without falling apart. This is what it feels like, to want someone, to be willing to risk it, to have no choice but to risk it, she realizes. This is how it goes: this is how you fall in love.

"You found a looker," comes in the voice, so loud in her head Debbie's certain Lou can hear it, too. But when violently tears herself away from Lou, Lou's confusion tells her that she heard nothing. There's a hand on her shoulder, but it isn't there when she looks. "I'm coming for you, Debbie" Claude Becker hisses in her ear.

The house goes dark. He is gone.

"Lou," she says through a dry throat, Lou's hands already finding her in the darkness. She can see, in the moonlight that penetrates through the windows, the sharp lines of Lou's face, speaking concern. Lou's hands, shaking a little, are laid on her shoulders, and Debbie feels the burn that Claude Becker's touch left easing in its severity.

With two single words, Lou reinforces her unyielding presence in Debbie's life. "Tell me."

"I need you to tell me everything you know about Claude Becker."

"Are you going to tell me why?" Lou replies without hesitation.

"Yes."

*

Lou does take a shower. Debbie can feel how hard it is for her to step away when she does, something so visceral happening between them when they break the already broken moment that the distance becomes physically palpable. Lou swallows, takes the towel that Debbie offers her and kisses Debbie's temple before going into the en-suite.

"I'll fix the electricity," Debbie tells her. "Give me two minutes."

"I can just light up all those candles," Lou points at the multiple candles all around Debbie's bedroom and inside the en-suite. She is making a joke about Debbie's excessive use of candles, Debbie knows, but she can also sense some seriousness in the suggestion.

"Here," she says, walks past Lou into the en-suite. She makes sure to keep eye contact with Lou as she blows on the candles, one by one, and they light up. Her heart flutters in her chest.

Lou raises two eyebrows, but soon enough, she approaches Debbie, pulls her to her and away from the last candle, shadows dancing on the walls around them as Lou kisses Debbie's cheek, lingers there, and murmurs, "I see."

"You don't care, do you?" Debbie marvels. "About any of it."

"Decided to go along with it the first time I noticed you do it."

"When was that?"

"That first time I met you, your elbow was on fire. And then it wasn't."

"I thought you didn't see that."

"I see everything."

Debbie turns her head, kisses Lou, can't help it. Lou is pliant for her, like she's been constantly waiting for Debbie to do that. Then Debbie pushes Lou back with two palms on her chest. "No, no. Sorry." She licks her lips, Lou's taste lingering on them, making it all harder to stop, but they need to talk. "Take your shower. I'll fix the electricity."

It takes a bit too long for Lou to let go of her hand as Debbie walks back into the bedroom. She doesn't look back, continues towards the stairs and down to the living room, still embarrassed to do anything of real magical significance in front of Lou. She grabs one of the random bulbs around the house, fingers tapping an ancient rhythm against it, and fixes the electricity.

*

"So, I killed Claude Becker," Debbie begins the tale from a spot Lou's familiar with. They sit in Aunt Ida's rocking chair, Debbie's palms wrapped around a cup of tea, Lou's arms wrapped around her. Debbie planned on keeping a safe distance, but Lou said "come here" when Debbie came down after taking her own shower, and Debbie couldn't resist.

"Twice," Lou asserts like it's a favorite bit of trivia about a celebrity she picked up in a magazine.

"Twice. The day I did that, he visited my store, asking questions about the town that I couldn't answer. You've probably noticed nobody really involves me in things. I knew he was after those paintings, but nothing more than that. I haven't left this town in years. When my Aunt, Ida, when she died, she left me the house and store to take care of, and…"

There's still that thing she can't tell Lou. About the curse. About the true love spell. She doesn't know how to explain why she never leaves this town without getting into that. But she can't possibly disclose it all to Lou.

"And you felt responsible," Lou finishes for her, and Debbie goes along with it.

"Magic is something you need to keep alive."

Lou is absentmindedly rubbing her thumb along Debbie's forearm, and Debbie focuses her attention on the glowing trail it creates.

"So, he asked questions," Lou prompts after a silent while. Debbie clears her throat.

"The truth is, I was bored. I was…he looked good. We came here. We kissed. I felt a gun, and then he pointed it at me."

"Debbie…"

"He wanted me to—he wanted my magic. I killed him. He came back. I killed him again. Burial is a very complicated thing, Lou."

Lou breathes in deeply, thumb still running along Debbie's forearm. "Is he dead, now?"

"That's the problem."

"He's not dead."

"He is, well, he is sort of haunting this place."

"Was that what happened, when we—"

"Yes. Look, people die, but they leave traces behind them. Those traces need to be cleared, sometimes, in certain situations, like when you go wrong with murder. This earth is far more knowledgeable than you think it is. So, I need your help. You wanted to help. I need you to tell me everything you know about him, so I can clear those traces, and kill him."

"This is everything I'm not supposed to do."

Debbie drinks her tea, lets Lou comprehend everything she just heard, lets her think. Lou brings her hand up and clears Debbie's hair behind her ear, takes the cup out of Debbie's hands, and lays it on the floor by their feet. Debbie turns to look her in the eyes, clears her freshly washed fringe away.

"How do you live with this thing?" she asks, clears it again as it falls right back in Lou's eyes.

Lou laughs. Her smile sticks around when she's done. Debbie brushes her lips against it, feels it widening, then dying out, and Lou breathes in deep and pushes Debbie slightly back.

"We've been following him for months, Tammy and I. He's got some nasty records behind him, ruined a lot of people's lives financially. Embezzlement, fraud, stuck some knives in people's backs, been through a lot of towns, and everywhere he's been to—havoc. I didn't think he'd be violent, but I can't say it surprises me, considering how desperate he must have been at this point. Enormous debt, multiple charges against him, I suppose magic really is the only thing that could have saved him. Debbie," Lou adds, then, more gravely than her whole speech about Claude Becker. "I don't think he came for the paintings. He couldn't have afforded to get those."

"You think he came searching for me."

"That would make sense. As much as, uh, as much as driving around searching for a witch can make sense."

"Oh, you have no idea how much sense that makes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Has he ever been to Vegas? These past months."

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

Debbie untangles herself out of Lou's snug hold, gets up so fast she's dizzy. "I need to call my brother."

Oh, _Danny_ , she thinks. You're a fucking idiot.

Lou follows her over to the telephone. "You have a brother," she says flatly, as if that's the last straw to break her back, Debbie having a brother.

"You're going to love him," Debbie sarcastically announces.

Danny doesn't pick up. But she's sure. She's sure this is somehow the fault of his little games. She hangs the receiver back in place and feels like the adrenaline that the understanding of Claude Becker wants, of what he's doing, of what he's done, that understanding which is bringing her closer to making him _go away_ , the adrenaline that came with it is now leaving her body and behind it remains the knowledge that this is more serious than she could have imagined. She can't let go of the receiver, knuckles white around it.

"No dice?" Lou asks as she gently unwraps Debbie's fingers and holds her hand against her chest.

"No dice."

"What's his deal, then? Your brother's?"

"He's using magic to con people in Vegas. If Claude Becker was there, I'm assuming Danny met him, and I'm assuming he did something stupid."

"He always does something stupid?"

"Pretty much."

Only as Lou pulls Debbie towards her, lays a palm against her cheek, and attempts a comforting smile, only then does Debbie realizes she's been gritting her teeth, her shoulders iron tight, and she tries to let go, but can't bring herself to. It's always Danny and his nonsense. It's always Danny and the fact he doesn't need to care.

_Fuck it. Fuck it,_ Debbie thinks, and kisses Lou, who is taken aback only for long enough to stumble slightly before she catches on, and wraps her arms around Debbie's thighs, lifts her up, carries her all the way over to the dining table. She kisses Debbie's neck, bites the soft skin a little, breathes heavy.

"You sure?" she asks.

"I'm tired of giving a fuck," Debbie replies.

Lou doesn't need a further explanation. She brings her lips back to Debbie's, pushes her flat back on the table, hands pulling the sweatpants she donned after the shower down. When they hit the floor, Debbie wraps her legs around Lou's waist, looks up at her and tries to even out her breaths, the beating of her heart. Lou's mouth works a line from Debbie's jaw to her chest bone.

The words slip out without any warning. "I think I made you up inside my head."

"Sylvia Plath."

"Mad Girl's Love Song."

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead."

Debbie threads her fingers in Lou's hair as Lou retraces the line back up to her Debbie's mouth. It's selfish, it's oh so selfish to do this, to let Lou in. How is she supposed to stop it, though, when she knows how much uglier the world is without her. That's why, she supposes, she must. But that's also why she can't. That's why, she supposes, the conundrum of the Ocean's curse can't be solved. She reaches for Lou's borrowed sweatpants, groans when she can't reach far enough, and lets Lou take over pushing them down. She sighs as Lou runs fingers over the wet patch on her panties, pushes up against them. Lou slides the clothing item off her smoothly.

"Bed," she insists, because in the midst of their haze she realizes it's harder to touch Lou in this position, and there is nothing she wants more than that. She straightens up and Lou lifts her again.

"Just a while longer," Debbie hums into their kiss, and though Lou can't possibly know what Debbie truly means, she agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr!](https://straperine.tumblr.com/)


End file.
